Guides Budget
How much does a honeymoon cost? Price the room first
A honeymoon budget is nights times a room, plus what you spend each day, plus the flights. The room is the line that moves most, so choose it first and the rest of the number follows.
The short answer
Couples spend about $5,300 on a honeymoon in Zola's 2026 data, and 71 percent of couples married in 2025 took one. The room decides most of that: seven nights at the average 2026 hotel rate cost $1,853 in Waikiki and $5,172 in Wailea on Maui, before taxes. Choose the nights and the area first, add a daily amount and two flights, and decide the total before you book the wedding's vendors if the same savings pay for both.
Most answers to this question give an average and a list of destinations. An average cannot tell you what your trip costs, because your trip is a number of nights in a particular room. This guide builds one week in Hawaii, the most familiar honeymoon in the US, from the state's own hotel figures, and shows which choice moves the total most.
What couples spend
Two figures are worth knowing:
- $5,300 is the average cost of a honeymoon in Zola's 2026 figures, listed with the engagement ring and the rehearsal dinner as a cost beyond the wedding day itself.
- 71 percent of couples married in 2025 went on a honeymoon, in The Knot's 2026 Real Weddings Study of 10,474 couples.
Zola counts the honeymoon outside the wedding's $36,000 average, and so does our guide to the average wedding cost. Whether you count it inside your own budget is a choice, and the last step below makes it.
A week in Hawaii, priced from the hotel rates
Hawaii's state economic department publishes what its hotels actually charged. In the first nine months of 2026, the average daily rate, the price of a room for one night before taxes, was:
| Where | A night | Seven nights |
|---|---|---|
| Waikiki, Oahu | $265 | $1,853 |
| All Hawaii hotels | $371 | $2,594 |
| Maui County | $538 | $3,764 |
| Wailea, Maui | $739 | $5,172 |
| Maui County luxury hotels | $945 | $6,618 |
The seven-night totals use the exact rates in the report, so they are a few dollars off seven times the rounded nightly figure.
The same week costs between $1,853 and $6,618 for the room alone. Every other line on the trip moves by tens of dollars a day. The room moves by hundreds a night.
The state's visitor figures give a second view. Visitors from the western US spent $277 a person a day in the first eight months of 2026, and visitors from the eastern US $314, counting lodging, food and drink, getting around, shopping and activities. For two people over seven days that is $3,878 to $4,396. That is an average visitor, many of them families sharing a room. A resort in Wailea costs more than that in rooms alone.
The method, in four steps
- Choose the nights. Every other line is multiplied by it. Visitors to Hawaii stayed 8.06 days on average in the first eight months of 2026, a useful reference for a long flight, not a rule.
- Choose the area and the kind of hotel, and price the room. Multiply the nightly rate by the nights. Ask for the total with taxes and any resort fee, because the rates above are before them.
- Set a daily amount for the two of you. Meals, a car, an excursion. This one is yours to choose; the example below uses $250 a day for two, for illustration.
- Add two return flights from a search for your own dates and airport, and the travel to and from the airport at home.
A worked example
Here is the same week at two hotels, with the $250 daily amount:
| Line | Waikiki | Wailea |
|---|---|---|
| Room, 7 nights | $1,853 | $5,172 |
| Daily amount, 7 days | $1,750 | $1,750 |
| Before flights and taxes | $3,603 | $6,922 |
Against Zola's $5,300, the Waikiki week leaves about $1,700 for two flights and taxes. The Wailea week is over the average before you have left home.
The decision rule: if the total is too high, change the nights or the area, not the daily amount. Cutting $50 a day for seven days saves $350. Moving from Wailea to Waikiki saves $3,319 on the room. Two fewer nights in Wailea saves $1,478.
Where the money comes from
Decide this before the wedding vendors are booked, because a wedding budget tends to spend whatever it is given.
- If the same savings pay for both, put the honeymoon in the wedding budget as its own line, with the number from the method above. Then the venue and the caterer are chosen from what is left, not the other way round.
- If it is paid for separately, keep it out, and agree where that money will come from, so the wedding does not spend it first.
- Family help. Tradition gave the honeymoon to the groom's family, as our guide to who pays for what sets out. Today it is a conversation, not an assumption.
- A honeymoon fund. Zola reports that 25 percent of couples now add cash funds to their registry to help cover wedding costs or the honeymoon.
If you are still building the savings, our guide to saving for a wedding works out a monthly amount from your date. A trip a few months after the wedding gives that plan more months.
When to book it
Book the flights and the hotel once the wedding date is firm, so neither has to move. Our free checklist by date adds "Plan honeymoon logistics" about four months before the wedding when you turn the honeymoon on, because passports, visas and fares all move faster than you would like. Check that the name on your tickets matches the passport or ID you will travel with.
Yes, I Do
Every cost, and what is left to pay
Add a quote or photograph it, and the amounts and due dates are filled in. You both see what is paid and which month is the heavy one.
Keeping the honeymoon in its line
In Yes, I Do the budget has a Honeymoon category among the others, or you can add one in a tap. Set it to the number you worked out. Add the hotel and the flights as costs, and each payment carries its own due date, so you see what is committed, what is paid and what is still to pay. If a category goes over what you set for it, the budget says so and suggests where to move money from. Your partner sees the same numbers on their phone.
Questions
How much does the average honeymoon cost?
About $5,300 in Zola's 2026 figures. The room decides most of it: seven nights at the average 2026 hotel rate cost $1,853 in Waikiki and $5,172 in Wailea on Maui, before taxes and flights.
Is $5,000 enough for a honeymoon?
For a week in many places, yes, if the room fits. A week in Waikiki at the average 2026 rate, with $250 a day for meals and activities, comes to about $3,600 before flights and taxes. A week at an average Wailea resort costs more than $5,000 for the room alone.
Do most couples go on a honeymoon?
Yes. The Knot's 2026 Real Weddings Study found 71 percent of couples married in 2025 went on a honeymoon, close to every year since 2021.
How long should a honeymoon be?
There is no rule. Visitors to Hawaii stayed about eight days on average in 2026. Choose the nights first, because the room, the daily spending and the car are all multiplied by them.
Who pays for the honeymoon?
Traditionally the groom's family paid for it. Today most couples pay themselves, sometimes with family help or a honeymoon fund on the registry, which 25 percent of couples now add, in Zola's figures.
Should the honeymoon be part of the wedding budget?
If the same savings pay for both, yes, as its own line, set before the vendors are booked. Zola and The Knot both report the honeymoon outside the wedding's average cost, so compare like with like when you read averages.
Sources
- Zola: average cost of a wedding in 2026, updated 6 March 2026, for the $5,300 honeymoon average and the 25 percent of couples adding cash funds to their registry.
- The Knot Real Weddings Study 2026, full data read-out (PDF), 10,474 US couples married in 2025, for the share who went on a honeymoon.
- Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism: September 2026 Hawaii hotel performance report (PDF), from STR data, for the average daily rates in the first nine months of 2026.
- Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism: August 2026 visitor statistics (PDF), released 30 September 2026, for daily visitor spending and the average length of stay.